WikiLeaks Releases 2,050 Emails From Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta
WikiLeaks has released 2,050 emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, in what they said was “the first of well over 50,000.”
RELEASE: the first 2050 of well over 50000 emails from Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta https://t.co/rpK9rbJ8ah #Podesta #imWithHer
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016
RELEASE: The Podesta Emails #HillaryClinton #Podesta #imWithHer https://t.co/pjX9tmfINt pic.twitter.com/kDTVFYHih7
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 7, 2016
The emails include paid speeches from Hillary Clinton, in which she boasted to private audiences that she was for “open trade and open borders” and admitted to being “kind of removed from the middle class.”
The leak also contains opposition research on Clinton’s main primary challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders, in which the campaign plotted to smear Sanders as a “sexist” with “extreme views on women,” as well as accuse his supporters of harassing women on the internet. The “Bernie Bros” smear, which did exactly that, became a major narrative of the Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary.
This could be the beginnings of WikiLeaks’ “October Surprise,” a long-anticipated release of emails from the Clinton campaign, that WikiLeaks and Assange have hinted at previously
Observers were disappointed earlier this week when a major press event with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was not accompanied by a Clinton email leak. Some in the press said WikiLeaks “failed to deliver.” Those criticisms may well dissipate if the information in today’s leak is significant enough.
WikiLeaks has already had a major impact on the presidential race. Their release of emails from the Democratic National Committee at the time of the Democrats’ party convention, showing DNC collusion against the Bernie Sanders campaign, led to the resignation of DNC chairman Debbie Wesserman Schultz.
Julian Assange has previously said that he also has material on Republican candidate Donald Trump, but also noted that his information is “no worse” than anything Trump says publicly.
